The N A T I O N ' S B U S I N E S S

VOLUME 12, NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY, 1924

A Mag

Russia Ended Socialism for Me

M
TT
a du n
Y FATHER was a Nihil-
ist. So was every lib-
e r a l intellectual in Rus-
" g the reign of Alexander
T H E writer of this article, Russian by birth, Amer-
ican by adoption, had fought in this country the
up charge, sentenced to be shot,
rescued through the interven-
tion of an American Red Cross
officer, and went through the
i j a ™ Alexander III. From second fall of Odessa into the
cmidhood I W as thoroughly battle for Socialism, had been a leader in the councils Bolsheviki hands.
peeped in the doctrines of Bak- of that party. When the overturn came in his native In prison I had as my cell-
^" n > Kuropotkin and Marx. land, he hurried back to play a part in shaping the mates eight of the men who
e n
rp r, . American children were were subsequently to become
new government, where Socialism should be put into
wading Grimm's Fairy Tales, I the leaders of Odessa. Together
was d igg m g m y w a y t h r o u g h t h e action and the brotherhood of man made real. He we planned the reconstruction
Karyt f" v o l u m e s of
"Das wanted to see the dawn of a new day for humanity, of the city. And I, an Ameri-
Karl M ' > *"" read and reread to take part in the great work.—THE EDITOR. can, had an active part in put-
nip Marx' monumental master- ting into practice in Russia the
n German and
- a n Vn o t o n c e in English doctrines of Karl Marx.
hIIf in each language, I acted as counsel to the Bol-
Whany times- shevik Government, helped form
teach * W a s e I e v e n > I remember my
He t i s e l e c t ing six boys from our class.
By JACOB H. RUBIN the various departments and had charge
of the production of a propaganda mo-
Us wok us to a field after school, pledged Former Member the Socialist Party Central Committee tion picture.
ProH s e c r e c y . and read with emotion a I not only directed this film but acted
atl0n t0 the
arise Russian people to in it, and then set forth from Odessa in a
the n i Verthrow
the Czar. Then he burned carry them to aggrandisement. The early special train to exhibit it. Later I was to
te
ach ation
* L a t e r I learned that our radical leaders died idealists. Of such men take one of the positives to America. The
incoen'r WaS a y o u n
8 nobleman who traveled was Paul Grotkow. Of those who watched picture made my name known throughout
each i f r o m sch
ool to school, staying in the Social Democratic Party grow to its pres- Russia, and so by the time that I reached
onl
seed r?t y l o n 8 enough to plant the ent power, I can single out Eugene Debs as Moscow, the Soviet capital, the commissars
u
j °i revolution. one of the few leaders who remained idealists. were awaiting me.
cialiSrn (rii!ed t o t n e l° n S discussions on So- The rest with few exceptions are opportunists The motion picture had shown the bribery
n ?ht too i
'ght a H s o r n e t'i m P^
ace a r o u n
d our table at and politicians. and graft of Deniken officials, the suppression
Bv th . e s took part in them. At that time I was blinded by my devotion of speech, the injustice and lack of order. In
whoVa t i i m e 1 W a s t h i r t e e n and my father, to the cause. The doctrines of the Social Moscow I found all the evils I had accredited
S nen
ing U n under sentence of exile for hav- Democrats, under Victor Berger, particularly to the Deniken Government flourishing un-
c ensored
ided t books in his possession, de- appealed to me; and this party I finally der the Soviet regime, only ten times worse.
r
evoli,f; c.°me to America, I was a Russian joined. In America Socialists often complained
In Am m S t i n t h e m a king. In the meantime I had been a Marxian long about the curb on free speech. In Moscow
d e m e r i t " 0 4 m y first c o n t a c t with the radical before most of the prominent Socialists of to- there were no public meetings except of the
an
arch'«t ^ a s a t a m eeting in memory of the day and years before there was any such thing Communist Party or for the spread of Com-
H
aymark • g e d i n C h i c a g o following the as a Socialist Party. As a dues-paying So- munist propaganda.
where m riot
" T h i s w a s in Milwaukee, cialist, I was a member of the central com- Even to visit a friend in his room in a
lo
ck-d Hn p a r e n t s had settled. Here, behind mittee, the body controlling the party policy. hotel required a permit. One had to explain
s X met Paul I spoke at public meetings and was a candidate
°ns~ w i n ' Grotkow, Mrs. Par- the object of the visit and the exact time it
Sc
hillin» A °/ 0 n e o f t h e anarchists, Robert for office. would take. One always talked in whis-
in
8 was o Berger. Before the meet- Much of my life outside of business was pers for fear that someone else might be
er t h e h a l 1 w a s spent in studying Socialism and attempting to listening.
A
tin
week Jat e r' w e m e t raided, and we fled.
ued ni,7 lr
above a saloon and con- bring its theories into actual existence. The And there were spies, spies on every hand,
exercises, social revolution seemed simply a matter of many more than during the most despotic
h aatt ttime
i m e on i
the S ? , i on I took ai time. I preached that the capitalistic system days of the Romanoffs. I was constantly
1 o f tthe
h e "" was wasteful, corrupt, unjust and destructive
cal s. H e ^ T ? " ^u Milwaukee radi- shadowed; and although I knew that one of
tf neard
nine
ine of " ," """" Grotkow vjrotkov preach the doc- of the soul, and that only in a state modeled my acquaintances was a spy, there was no
Ur e
& everv Utl n-
? H e even w e n t s0 f
ar as to upon the principles of Karl Marx could things way of knowing how many others were. It
ran
gement« J v o r k m a n to arm, and made ar- be otherwise. was impossible to express an opinion freely.
tion urch You can imagine with what joy I hailed the
- AW P asing rifles and ammuni- It is impossible to enumerate all the little
Was actuall d
for a m-i!? y "Ued, although I news that the Romanoff dynasty had been signs of oppression that I found everywhere,
p pr r
arty took f °g am. When the Populist overthrown and that at last the Russian peo- but here is one that indicates the length to
Schists s J T 0 U t o f t h i s mixture of an- ple were putting into operation the principles which the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
•l' ^hile the S and
Communists, I joined in which I had soaked myself. went. Church attendance was a sign that one
"? t o the W^i 0 r T e *; a d i c a l elements crystallized I seized the first opportunity to enter Rus- was not a true Communist. And so the citi-
? e anarchkt abor Part
y under Leon and sia, going by way of the Balkans, supposedly zens who had been compelled to join the
the r0U Under J o h a n M o s t Later
Social T J r? on a business mission, but with my red card, Communist Party in order to hold places,
?Lne °f whirK i ? r P a r t y s p l i t i n f o two factions, a letter from the Soviet Ambassador, Martens, either stayed away from services altogether
n
the w : ! ^ * believed in the bullet; the other, to Tchicherin, and another from Morris Hil- or attended them in disguise. An official in
the Social Democratic quit sewed in the lining of my overcoat. a bristle factory, although a devout Jew, re-
UrLl' l nm the he balIot
mained away from the synagogue on the Day
While thes
.While tn " At Odessa the government was controlled
? U r e s t ideal?— P a r U - S w e r e funded on the by Denikin, who had previously wrested the of Atonement because he was afraid that one
Sim
Ply the veh'ir!" v H e r y ' a r s they b e c a m e city from the control of the Bolsheviki. I of the numerous government spies would dis-
enicies of ambitious leaders to was arrested as a Bolshevik spy on a trumped- cover him and that he would lose his liveli-
13
14 THE NATION'S BUSINESS February, 1924

hood. I had always looked upon corruption and a comrade. Instead I found new barriers and the public, would vanish! What I found in-
bribery as adjuncts of monarchical and capi- a new aristocracy. stead was a system unbelievably wasteful, in-
talistic governments. Under Communism I Besides the officials of the tchaika and the efficient and expensive.
believed that all officials would work unself- Red army—a class of corrupt, arrogant over- In the first place, centralization of the
ishly for the glory of the state. Instead I lords—there were the speculators. These, means of production and distribution, instead
found corruption and graft in high places on acting as agents of the tchaika, sold goods of eliminating waste, created it. There was
a colossal scale. confiscated for general distribution at exorbi- endless checking and rechecking. Imagine our
When private property was abolished, the tant prices, and amassed fabulous fortunes. own government in Washington being sud-
tchaika immediately requisitioned all chattels In high offices I found men grotesquely un- denly saddled with the additional responsibility
and removed them to warehouses. Instead of fit to hold their positions. A former scaven- of operating all our industries, and you have
redistributing them equally, about one-half ger, for instance, was an officer in the depart- a faint picture of the situation. Departments
fell into the hands of the tchaika officials. ment of health, while a one-time shoemaker and bureaus tangled up in endless red tape!
What they could not use they sold through was a member of the important food com- The smallest operations requiring applica-
their agents in the great public market-place, mission. Those of low position and youth ap- tions, permits, requisitions!
although public trading was at that time a peared to be especially favored in the ap- In capitalistic Milwaukee when a pipe
capital offense. pointments. In the desire to sweep away the leaked, I called a plumber. Sometimes he de-
On the other hand, when any merchant who old regime and substitute the "New Russia," layed, but the pipe was repaired. Not so in
had succeeded in concealing a part of his girls and boys scarcely out of the schools were Moscow. There the task was more involved
stores from confiscation attempted to sell made judges in judiciary positions. In Mos- than filling out an income tax blank. First
anything so that he might purchase food, the cow the age of the police judges ranged one had to get a blank and file application
tchaika would raid the market- with the office of repairs. This
place, seize everything and later application went to the depart-
sell it through its own agents at ment of plumbing. Here requisi-
the same market! tions were prepared for workmen
The great contrasts between
wealth and poverty in capital-
istic Europe and America I saw
F O R twenty-five y e a r s I stud-
ied K a r l M a r x a n d went u p
a n d dow n t h i s l a n d p r e a c h i n g
at the workers' central clearing
house. In the meantime, one
had to file a permit for the neces-
magnified in Communistic Russia, sary material in another office,
where the Bolshevik commissars communism. from which requisitions were
lived in luxury while the mass of I preached t h a t capitalism w a s made on the central warehouse.
the people slowly starved. A few Each of t h e s e steps took
great leaders like Lenine, Trotsky wasteful, corrupt , unjust a n d weeks, if not months. Applica-
and Tchicherin really lived quite destructive of t h e soul. U n d e r tion for repairs in the bath-
modestly. They were the strik- communism, I found a system room of the apartment i°
ing exceptions to the general unbelievably m o r e wasteful, in- which I lived in Moscow was
selfish callousness of the com- Jacob H. Rubin efficient a n d expensive. filed two days before I arrived,
missars. May 30. When I left, Octo-
When asked who would "do the I preached t h a t corruption ber 21, the plumbers had not
dirty work" under Socialism, I and bribery were adjuncts of capitalistic g o v e r n - yet arrived!
had always replied that every cit- m e n t s a n d under c o m m u n i s m all officials would In the factories there were ap-
izen should take his turn at it. w o r k unselfishly for t h e glory of t h e state. I n s t e a d plications, permits, orders and
Moscow adopted this unselfish requisitions for everything, not to
I found corruptio n a n d g r a f t on a colossal scale. mention endless reports. I vis-
plan. Once a week every citizen
was supposed to do his share I preached a g a i n s t t h e artificial distinctions of ited perhaps a hundred factories
of the unpleasant work. Yet, of all kinds, and everywhere 1
whenever a drafted man was able wealth a n d b i r t h a n d America' s dollar aristocracy. saw the same conditions. Most
to bribe an official, he was inva- I n soviet Russia, I expected to find all social b a r - of the work was clerical—the fiU-
riably released. riers b r o k e n d o w n a n d every m a n a comrade. I n - ing out of the many forms.
Transportation was in such bad stead, I found n e w b a r r i e r s a n d a new aristocracy. Aside from this tremendous
shape that railroad travel was amount of paper work little was
permitted only "on government Like m a n y a n o t h e r honest reformer, I failed to done. The superintendents and
business." Yet by means of gold t a k e h u m a n n a t u r e into account.—JACOB H . RUBIN. overseers were not afraid of los-
one could always convince the ing their jobs, and much time was
official who happened to be in spent making speeches lauding the
charge of the issue of passes that Soviet Government. Because &»
one was "on government business." labor was requisitioned according
Houses were requisitioned from the owners from 17 to 25. These were the children or to the public need, no one seemed interested
and supposedly reassigned in an absolutely nearest kin of the Communists who had taken in his job. One was always sure of h ,s
impartial manner, one room going to every part in the revolution. daily ration, no matter how little or ho*^
two persons. But by bribery an owner could The Soviet leaders seemed to take particular much work he did and no matter how wen
retain a room in his own home, together with delight in humiliating those of former position. or poorly he did it.
some of the furniture. Policy of "first come, I found men, once prosperous, working for In the factories I found former comrnOn
first served" was supposed to prevail in the their old clerks; merchants as truck drivers; laborers occupying the highest places, whd e
distribution of all rations. I have often a government not of equality, but of revenge. men of technical training and experience, wh°
seen thousands of persons wait in line for That was the new aristocracy—speculators, might have been able to maintain a fair de-
days to get a new pair of shoes, but by bribery boys and girls in high office, the underdog who gree of efficiency, did menial labor.
one could get shoes immediately. found himself on top not because of ability,
but because he had been the underdog. Some- Destruction of Incentive
Just a New Aristocracy times it seemed as though a loud voice and a "DEFORE my visit to Russia I had regarded
V l f H E N E V E R a Russian official had ac- long record of atrocities were the best assets -*-* the stock argument against Socialism t b e^
» * cumulated a large store of treasure in for the politically ambitious. it destroys incentive as sophistry. I firmly b '
return for his influence, he would attempt to Back in Milwaukee how often had I pointed lieved that the incentive which set men }
influence some higher official to get him an out the terrible waste of the capitalistic sys- struggling for wealth under the competiti v
appointment as courier. This would give him tem—the duplication of effort by rival con- system was base, and would be replaced by
the opportunity to take his ill-gotten gains to cerns, the struggle for domestic and foreign higher incentive—the common good. ,
some foreign land while ostensibly engaged on markets by competing sales organizations, the In Russia I found that the love for th
a government mission. Often the couriers huge expenditures for competitive advertising. common good spent itself mainly in speecj1
never returned. A cooperative system, I had assured my au- making, flag-waving and politics. Not on/
As a Social Democrat, I had often spoken diences, would do away with middlemen, give in the shops and mills were individual }n*il?e
tD
against the artificial distinctions of birth or the consumer goods at actual cost, and give the tive and incentive crushed, but even in
wealth. Specially bitter was I against Amer- laborer the full product of his toil. Profit, fields, because every pound of potatoes, eve /
ica's "dollar aristocracy." In Soviet Rus- rent and interest would be eliminated. The bushel of grain, every head of cattle, ° v e f . e
sia, on the other hand, I expected to find all selfish incentive to pile up profits, to beat certain quota were confiscated by the sta *
social barriers broken down and every man one's competitor, instead of better serving Not only the incentive to work was crushe »
February, 1924 THE NATION'S BUSINESS 15

"""» nu. © Ewlng Galloway

? h e midriL ' t o systematize, to cooperate. was only gradually that the full significance There is no freedom of speech or assembly,
5 ecar ne n!fm-arl'- i n s t e a d o f being eliminated, of the failure of the Soviet Government was and the press is still suppressed. The educa-
ep
artm e n t g 1P e d i n t 0 bureaus, offices and borne in upon me. I fought against the testi- tional system has become better organized for
mony of my own senses as long as I could. inculcating children with propaganda, and in
and
fo^nd"!? 1 ^ h o u r s i n R ussian schoolrooms At the end I had to admit that the principles addition a system patterned after our Boy
thiamine ? a l y . e d u c a t e d or ignorant teachers of Marxian Socialism, as applied to the solu- Scout movement has been developed. Every
? a r l Marv tv. i children the theories of tion of human problems, are false. boy from eight to fifteen belongs to a mili-
? e e vil s of r Philosophy of internationalism, I left Russia on December 20, 1920. Since tary organization which is attached to such
he
classes r a p i t r -i l s m - T h e schools, including leaving I have kept in constant touch with regular regiment. Morals are apparently
,m.eans of ,-n °ri ad . ults > w e r e almost purely a conditions. My information has come from laxer.
the the young and ignorant many sources: from correspondence with After three years of peace, production of
oif. t fe friends and relatives still in Russia, from in- manufactures is only one-fifth as great as be-
c d ld eas of Communism and atheism. terviews with Russian emigrants, from a cor- fore the war, while the annual value of agri-
n e r e d at T ? a r e ? t a l l o v e and respect were respondent at Reval in the employ of the cultural products is less than half of normal,
r duc ,Id w a s tau
V, ° t anri th g h t that he is a Bolshevik Government, and from absolutely according to the Soviet Government's own
Ur e pr pert
T soldier o f ? i , ? y o f t h e state and a fu- authentic sources which I cannot reveal. reports.
en lndust
ll* , tered i , • r i a l or military army. Conditions have not changed fundamentally Communism as I saw it is more wasteful,
^ S g dreamc S,aAi!° find t h e realization of for the better since I left. The same group more corrupt, more unjust and more destruc-
P A1 m
i n d i c e s l ™ ! - J y sympathies, all my tive of man's soul than capitalism.
' w e r e in favor of Bolshevism. It of the Communist Party still rules by force.